Students from the Moroccan Luban Workshop at Tianjin College of Commerce visit an enterprise in Tianjin. CHINA DAILY

As an official co-organizer for the service industry parallel session of the World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference 2026, Tianjin College of Commerce draws on its 70-year-long legacy in foreign languages, foreign affairs and international trade education. It serves as a concrete demonstration of how Chinese vocational colleges implement the Luban Workshop blueprint and export mature technical and vocational education and training (TVET) solutions to fast-growing digital economy sectors worldwide.

Created by Tianjin in 2016, Luban Workshop represents China's flagship overseas TVET brand, operating under the "small but beautiful, people-centered" guiding ethos.

Rather than mechanically transplanting Chinese curricula overseas, it adopts the adaptive "Chinese experience plus local market demands" approach. It prioritizes capacity building of host country's teaching staff instead of dispatching large numbers of Chinese teachers abroad. The Engineering Practice Innovation Project, the core teaching methodology for Luban Workshop, advocates "learning by doing and doing by learning", bridging theoretical knowledge with on-the-job requirements.

Among Tianjin's 26 overseas Luban Workshop sites across 24 countries, the Morocco Luban Workshop, jointly built by Tianjin College of Commerce and Morocco's Specialized Institute of Applied Technology Hay Hassani 1, specializes in international business and cross-border e-commerce — a niche tailored to Morocco's booming online consumption market and Chinese enterprises' outreach needs in digital trade.

Inaugurated in December 2021, this Moroccan site has run multiple rounds of vocational training courses, opened online language and skills programs, and set up Tianjin's first academic degree order class for Moroccan overseas students. Student enrollments keep rising year-on-year, supported by special municipal government scholarships.

"Luban Workshop is far more than a simple cooperative project; it builds solid bridges for skill exchange and industrial connectivity," said Ma Lei, Party secretary of Tianjin College of Commerce. "We work hand-in-hand with our Moroccan counterparts to embed China's proven training frameworks within local vocational education systems, empowering young local talent to grasp cross-border e-commerce capabilities and participate in the global digital economy."

Local market demand underpins the partnership. Moroccan consumers are increasingly purchasing merchandise directly from China via e-commerce channels, fueling strong youth enthusiasm for cross-border digital-trade skills.

At the November 2025 launch ceremony for the "TVET Escort, Industry Going Global" cross-border e-commerce training program, Abdelmoula Sadik, regional director of Morocco's vocational education and employment promotion office for the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, commended the Luban Workshop's tangible contribution to youth upskilling and national industrial development, and voiced expectations for expanded future cooperation.

The cross-border e-commerce specialty delivered by the Morocco Luban Workshop has been integrated into the local national vocational education system. Its teaching standards and talent-cultivation plans have obtained recognition from Moroccan education authorities. This aligns with a core feature of the national Luban Workshop initiative: delivering sustainable institutional capacity instead of one-off short-term workshops, by exporting standardized teaching frameworks, digital learning resources and professional competency criteria.

Zahiri Essaadia, an outstanding graduate of the first Moroccan class tailored to employers' needs, offers proof of the model's effectiveness. "My three-year study program at Tianjin College of Commerce was rich and rewarding. Even before graduation, I had secured a satisfying professional position," she said.

Domestically, Tianjin College of Commerce operates four specialized training labs covering cross-border e-commerce operations, visual marketing, virtual simulation and studio practice. It merges foreign language proficiency, commercial know-how and digital technology competency into its teaching architecture.

The college has established six industry-oriented colleges in cooperation with leading corporations including Alibaba's AliExpress and JD.com, maintaining partnerships with a total of 548 enterprises. Its graduate employment rate has climbed, with graduate job placement quality ranking among Tianjin's top vocational institutions for five consecutive years.

Sino-Moroccan teaching staff, together with Chinese enterprises operating locally in Morocco, have jointly developed Chinese-French bilingual textbooks for cross-border e-commerce majors. Remote instruction is delivered via the "air classroom" online teaching model, gradually transplanting Tianjin's mature curriculum into Morocco's formal academic system. The college has also contributed multiple digital courses to the national digital Luban Workshop online resource platform; out of the 311 online courses hosted on the platform, 308 are developed by Tianjin-based vocational institutions.

This collaborative mechanism fosters positive two-way circulation between educational cooperation and economic exchanges. Locally trained talent proficient in cross-border e-commerce helps Chinese brands and goods access Moroccan consumer markets, while boosting the growth of Morocco's domestic digital commerce.

This mirrors Luban Workshop's nationwide objective: supplying local skilled personnel to resolve talent bottlenecks confronting Chinese enterprises expanding overseas, forming a virtuous cycle where educational opening-up bolsters trade and industrial cooperation.

Looking ahead, Tianjin College of Commerce will keep aligning its training outputs with human resource requirements of Chinese enterprises operating under the Belt and Road Initiative. It will persist with its "training tailored to employers' needs plus targeted talent placement" model, helping overseastrained graduates "adapt, settle and thrive" within work environments.

Starting from the Luban Workshop platform and centered on cross-border e-commerce talent cultivation, the college uses vocational skills as people-to-people ties linking global youth with China, telling real-world stories of Chinese vocational education sector's international engagement.

Yang Xiangyu contributed to this story.